


The Architecture of Loss

by domesticadventures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Headspace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-25
Updated: 2014-11-25
Packaged: 2018-02-26 23:29:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2670389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s an architecture to loss, a way people expect it to look.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Architecture of Loss

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [propinquitous'](http://archiveofourown.org/users/propinquitous/pseuds/propinquitous) [tag](http://propinquitous.tumblr.com/tagged/the-architecture-of-loss), drawn from [this poem](https://twitter.com/warsan_shire/status/175618748399616000) by [warsan shire](https://twitter.com/warsan_shire).
> 
> Companion pieces: [Dean](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2396159) | [Cas](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4286976)

There’s an architecture to loss, a way people expect it to look.

They understand it unconsciously in the same way that even when walking into an unfamiliar building, they have some rough idea where everything is supposed to go, the walls and doors and windows. You say  _I lost my mother_ and people examine you with the same solemn regard with which they survey grand arches and stone pillars, they frown like they’re contemplating intricate blueprints. There’s a pattern to it, the questioning, how old were you, how did it happen, it must have been so difficult.

When you say  _I never knew her_ , though, people don’t know what to do. They consider you carefully, faces contorting like they’ve found a door floating before them upside-down, like they’re examining stairways leading from nowhere to nowhere.

Your loss is an Escher painting. People look at you for a while, puzzled.

And then they look away.

\--

Love is not a finite resource. You know this because even now, you haven’t run out.

Love is also a living resource. You know this from experience, too, from everything you’ve learned about your mother, from the abrupt truncation of her life and everything she had to give. Mary’s love exists only in memory, and you have none of her.

You see her in heaven, and that makes it worse. You’re an intruder there, invisible in that place you do not belong, that moment that is the sole custody of your mom and your brother. You have no claim to her love, and even if you did, Dean’s and John’s would far outweigh your own.

Her love is finite, and there is not enough left for you.

There is never enough left for you.

\--

Your brother introduces you to Vonnegut when you’re fourteen, hands you a stolen copy of  _Cat’s Cradle_ long before you’ve seen humans in all their iterations.

You do see them, though, eventually, every polymorph imaginable. The spectrum ranges from light like you wouldn’t believe to darkness you wish you couldn’t imagine, and you have seen yourself along every point, in every shade on the terrible scale.

You were the savior of the world, once, but more often than not, you feel like the seed crystal hanging around its neck. You want to say: I love you, but please just let me go. Let me boil away so I am not a danger to anyone else. But the choice is not yours to make.

The choice has never been yours to make.

\--

You have never stopped giving things your love, and you have never loved anything you have not lost.

 _What would I do without you?_ you asked, and her response bounces back and forth along the timeline of your life, echoing endlessly:  _Crash and burn_. Your home goes up in flames when you’re six months old, but you can still feel the fire in your periphery thirty-one years later. It claims your family, your friends, your dreams, your whole damn life. Mary, John, Madison, Ellen, Jo, Bobby, Sarah, Dean, Dean, Dean -- you say their names like a prayer until the list becomes too long, until remembering feels too much like breathing in smoke.

You’ve even lost yourself, on occasion, sometimes due to the well-meaning arrogance of others and sometimes due to your own.

 _What happened with you being okay with this?_ he asks.

 _I lied_ , you say.

It’s easier than  _I love you_.

\--

You tell yourself, each time, that this is the last. This time, things will be different.

You would think you’d acclimate to the shock of losing him, but you don’t. There’s no desensitization involved, just the inevitable disappointment. The worst part is you believe your own sad hopefulness wholeheartedly every damn time, anyway.

You tell yourself he’s cured. How sad, the way you’re so sure of it.

When he empties his clip into her, each shot blows another hole in that argument. You’re shaking, by the end, drenched in sweat and breathing hard.

The violence of it scares you, sure. But not as much as the fact that your mind is already composing a goodbye.


End file.
